a blog supplementing the Images of America book from Arcadia Publishing

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Downtown 1958

Monday, January 27, 2014

K.M. Hutchinson

The K.M. Hutchinson sternwheeler is shown here at the Menasha dock. Racine Street is just behind the boat. The tall building to the right of the ship's smokestacks is Loescher Hardware at Main and Racine.In about 70 years or so, the Racine Street bridge will join mainland Menasha at this point.

The boat was built in Oshkosh in 1886 from the hull of a two masted schooner. It was first owned by a Captain Emelious P. Bangs who ran the boat from Oshkosh to Green Bay although it was reportedly top-heavy and capsized several times. He later sold it to Joe Smick, who ran it on the Wolf River. It burned on a sand bar between Lakes Poygan and Winneconne in 1895.

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Menasha was carved from the northeastern Wisconsin wilderness in the late 1840s. At the confluence of the Fox River and Lake Winnebago, the town’s early entrepreneurs and industrialists sought the promise of waterpower to fuel their mills and kick-start the engine of commerce. Taming the Fox with dams, canals, and a lock, Menasha initially made its mark with flour mills and lumber-based industry. At one time, the city was home to the largest manufacturer of wood-turned products in the world. In the late 19th century, however, the tides of change once again washed upon the city and industrial focus shifted to the paper industry. What made Menasha great were dependable waterpower, plentiful rail connections to centers of commerce in Milwaukee and Chicago, and a prolific labor force that coincided with an influx of European immigrants.